This was our first time stopping in Grenada in 20 days. This fact scares the bejeebers out of me, because, honestly, it seems as if we were just there last week. Again I say, time is flying by much, much too quickly, and I'm so glad I'll have this blog to remind me of all we did and saw (and ate) during our winter at sea.
Our late arrival into Grenada today afforded us the opportunity to do some typical "sea day" type things but also a holiday related activity in the morning.
First, there was an activity billed as the Emerald Princess Showcase at Sea in the Piazza beginning at 10am. I happened on it almost by chance...it had been listed in the Patter but, sadly, I didn't take notice. But when I was in the Piazza just as it kicked off, it drew me in. First, two of the singers performed Christmas songs, and then four of the dancers did a routine (their Mambo routine). Then, for the duration of the event, party band Sole Provider was playing and they are good, good, good. And Cruise Director Lee announced that the different ship departments would have tables set up throughout the Piazza and would be holding raffles for different products and services. Now, this sort of mass of humanity is not normally my thing (it's right up G's alley, but he was in a hot tub), but I must have been feeling a holiday high, because I found myself going from table to table, picking up raffle tickets for the spa, three different shops, the Internet Cafe (40 free minutes!!), the photo gallery, etc. I then purchased my once-every-four-cruises iced white chocolate blended coffee from the International Cafe, which is bad for me from every perspective (but I did get a decaf!) and settled in a chair on Deck 5 in the Piazza listening to Sole Provider and awaiting the raffle.
Did I win anything? Of course not. Need you have asked? Now, G...he would have won something, but, again, he was still in that hot tub, so I was carrying the burden of hope alone.
But backing up, before that, this morning after breakfast, I sat down and wrote out another set of Christmas cards, this time for people on the ship to whom we want to send holiday cheer. We debated sending them to our Thai waiter friends -they are Buddhist- but then noted the cards also said Happy New Year, and decided it was the right thing to do. After all, we celebrated with them the occurance of their king's birthday on December 5th.
So, anyway, I was in the Piazza at the Passenger Services Desk "mailing" the cards when the Showcase at Sea kicked off, which is how I happened to become aware of it.
We actually arrived earlier than scheduled into Grenada, which was remarkable as the Emerald Princess had been bucking a headwind since we started heading north after leaving Bonaire yesterday. In fact, it made for some spectacular sprays of water over the bow, which is the other thing we did this morning: stood on the Promenade Deck and ooh-ed and aah-ed over the plumes of water sent up almost as high as Deck 7 on the front of the ship (it's kind of the maritime equivalent of watching fireworks). Oh, and I have forgotten to mention too that we saw dolphins this morning as we were watching the sprays. Actually, we first saw flying fish, and then we saw the reason they were flying out of the water...the dolphins were hot on their trail for a meal.
So, moving ahead again, to when the ship actually arrived in St. George's, Grenada...
We walked off the ship with the intention of finding some free wifi in the Esplanade Mall, right where the cruise ship docks. I had had no luck with this during our last visit, on a Sunday, and today it looked like we would be similarly out of luck but then we climbed the stairs to the second floor of the mall and found it...shaded, fast and free wifi. No, it wasn't cool, and it certainly wasn't quiet, what with the ubiquitous reggae music blaring and all the Christmas shoppers around, but it was certainly good enough, and I was able to get a Vonage call out to Mom to hear just how bad she sounded, which is pretty darn bad. I hope you feel better soon, Mom!!
After catching up on things at home and texting a friend a bit, we returned to the ship in time for lunch in the dining room (again, although it was a port day, the dining room was open because we arrived late in the day). It happened to be our favorite lunch menu- fried mozzarella sticks for G and that spaghetti aglio, olio and pepperacino for me. It was there that we firmed up our plan for the day: to take the water taxi to Grand Anse Beach.
It's hard for us to believe, but we didn't do this a single time last winter, and I really don't know why not, because, despite its bad rap, it really is a wonderful way to spend a short day in port.
We pared down our typical beach packing list so that everything fit in my backpack, and made the 5 minute walk from the cruise ship to the water taxi pier. It's about a 15 minute boat ride to Grand Anse Beach, and the water taxi docks at a pier there. We walked onto the beach expecting to walk down to one end and lay out our tarp, but G must have felt like livin' large today, because we rented two chairs and an umbrella right by the pier and settled in to people watch and boat watch and wave watch.
Eventually, a light rain moved in, but it quickly cleared, and then a heavier rain followed, and lots of people were boarding the water taxis to return to the cruise ship, but we stayed dry and happy under our large umbrella and so waited it out. Sure enough, the sun came out again, and we had another wonderful hour or so on the beach. Finally, we saw only one other set of Princess's blue and white striped beach towels on the entire beach, and when those passengers boarded a water taxi about 5:00pm, we thought we should do the same. We had a beautiful boat ride back to the ship, and, once on board, bypassed our cabin to walk right out to the Terrace Deck to watch sunset off the back of the ship.
We didn't get to the dining room until 6:20pm, but since the all on board time was 6:30pm, everyone was running late. We ate a quick (very quick) dinner and were in the Princess Theater for the 7:15pm show, comedian Darrell Joyce. We should have taken our time. :-(
Then it was back to the dining room for coffee and dessert before we headed to Club Fusion for the second Beatle Maniacs show of the cruise. All the best Beatles songs that they didn't perform last night, they did tonight, and it was a great show. I'm so sorry we won't see them again until the January 6th cruise!!
Finally, it was after 10pm and blogging time, to be followed immediately by bedtime.
Photo 1: party band Sole Provider performs in the Piazza
Photo 2: that yummy white chocolate blended mocha
Photo 3: Fort George on a hill above the port. We walked up to this several times last winter.
Photo 4: G and John, the water taxi guy in the terminal. That's his real hair (John. G too.)!
Photo 5: the Carenage, St. George's Grenada